Healthcare

Monash IVF and a host of IVF clinics have taken Insurance Australia Ltd to court over coverage ahead of mediation in a class action alleging the companies destroyed potentially viable embryos. 

After leading the first in a series of class actions by thousands of junior doctors to victory at trial, the applicant in a landmark wage case against Peninsula Health has told a judge the penalty against the Victorian hospital operator must send a clear message.

A contradictor has argued against Monash IVF’s bid for orders allowing it to retain embryos as evidence in a class action, saying the Victorian Supreme Court has no power to make orders inconsistent with the company’s statutory obligation to store embryos for a maximum of five years. 

A law firm is investigating claims against the manufacturers of popular heartburn and acid reflux drugs, alleging they could be responsible for causing stomach cancers and kidney failure in approximately 100,000 people.

Monash IVF is fighting a class action’s bid to file a fourth statement of claim in the three year-old case over the alleged destruction of potentially viable embryos, saying the proposed pleadings sparked by an expert report constituted a new case. 

Law firm Holding Redlich has been hit with proceedings over invoices totalling more than $334,000 by an ex-client who says the firm provided no cost agreement and made no cost disclosure over the course of an eight-month retainer. 

Sydney-based plastic surgeon Daniel Lanzer and several of his associates have objected to a class action’s eighth attempt at getting its claims over allegedly negligent cosmetic procedures right, saying the plaintiffs were engaged in a “continuing cycle of propagating versions” of their case.

A judge has rejected Samsung Bioepis’ bid to discover research and development documents from Pfizer as it seeks to invalidate the drug giant’s patent for its blockbuster autoimmune drug Enbrel, agreeing with Pfizer that it may be “no more than an exercise in fishing”.

Medibank failed to put in place baseline security measures, including multi-factor authentication, to safeguard sensitive information from a hacker in 2022, who stole an IT contractor’s credentials and logged in to the health insurer’s private network three months before the company learned its data was compromised, the OAIC says.

Elanco Australasia has lost its bid to appeal a finding by IP Australia that a patent acquired from Bayer covering a lice treatment for livestock lacked an inventive step.